


What Good's That?

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:46:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22501186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "So, because I’m a myth nerd, I was kind of surprised when the Books/Movie had the Phooka represented by Bunny in JUST a rabbit form. Phooka are shapeshifting spirits after all - usually in the form of horses, with black manes and glowing eyes. In fact, most of their forms are black with glowing eyes.Can I see something with Bunny being a myth Phooka, with the ability to shapeshift and all - and Pitch, fascinated by Bunny’s species naturally dark (man eating horses, murderous dogs, elvish fae - not nice creatures) tendencies and trying to bring them out in the Easter Bunny?"Before Bunny was the Easter Bunny, he was a pooka like any other. When the other pooka started to disappear, the Guardians made him an offer. But Guardianship isn’t something Aster can take up lightly.
Relationships: E. Aster Bunnymund/Pitch Black
Kudos: 15
Collections: Dark Chocolate Short Fics





	What Good's That?

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 8/8/2014.
> 
> This is my personal favorite Dark Chocolate fic that I wrote.

“Are you seriously considering their offer?” The voice comes from one of the shadows surrounding Aster’s nest, a patch of darkness that doesn’t conform to the curved sides like a shadow should.  
  
“Hello, Pitch. Should have known you’d be here,” Aster says, and the darkness resolves into the form of a very tall, thin man, fey-beautiful, which is to say, not at all to mortal eyes, not without glamour. Pitch’s glamour is long gone, not a trace of it remains, not even when he’s speaking, not even when he’s moving. But he’s fey-beautiful, and beautiful to a fey. The loss of his glamour and whatever caused it terrify Aster in a way quieter than how it terrifies mortals, and thus—  
  
“Where else should I be?” Pitch asks. “Where else but with the one I’ve run with?”  
  
Aster closes his eyes and leans against the side of the nest. Yes, they have run together. They’ve run together over hills and under the moon, Pitch Black the shadow, the shudder at the heart, the howl in the wind that pushed the mortals closer to their flickering fires, Aster the pooka beside him, black horse or black dog, wicked laughing and leaping, a creature who did not bite but would be glad to fool you into thinking he did. A wild sort of being, never sitting still, always rushing over the horizon towards whatever might be there, good or bad.  
  
It was this rushing forward that had led them to approach him, out of all the fey. They seemed to think there was some bravery in it.  
  
“Suppose I should say you ought to be with your own kind,” Aster says.  
  
“I’ve never had a _kind_ ,” Pitch says, in the tone of voice Aster’s never been able to decipher. “Not like you.”  
  
“Like I used to.” Aster looks down, rests his hands on his knees. He’s stayed in one shape for days now. It doesn’t feel right, but it’s not so easy to change anymore. “You probably already know, don’t you? I haven’t seen another pooka in a while.”  
  
“That’s why you think you’re considering their offer?” Pitch asks. “Because you’re afraid of being alone?” The scrape of branches on walls in the middle of the night creeps into his voice.  
  
“You know something different?”  
  
Pitch Black stares at him with luminous yellow eyes. “You’re not afraid of being alone. You don’t understand what that means, not yet, and maybe never, not if you go with the Guardians.”  
  
“You understand it, then?”  
  
“Yes.” Pitch’s voice is the barest hiss. “And it looks like I’m going to understand it again, soon.” He wraps his arms around his knees. “What will it be like for you, Aster? All those rules, all that light? What are you going to do with the darkness in you? The wilderness? Are you going to shove it all away? What are you going to do when you meet someone who still has those things?”  
  
“Hope I’ll be able to find out,” Aster says, “even if I don’t like it. The world’s changing, Pitch, and I know you can tell that as well as I can.”  
  
“The world is always changing,” Pitch says. “You could weather it without them. You’re strong. And you could weather it…with me.”  
  
Aster shifts in the nest so he’s lying down in the center of it, and Pitch, acting as if he has no choice, curls his skinny form against him.  
  
“Pitch,” Aster says, draping an arm over him. “No, I don’t think I could. I’m too afraid of fading. Even with you, I can’t…be like you. And you have faded.”  
  
“I don’t deny it,” Pitch whispers. “But they’ll change you. They’ll ask you to be something you’re not. Give you one shape, one purpose.”  
  
“If I don’t go with them, I’m going to disappear,” Aster says softly, pulling Pitch closer. “I’m going to disappear to where all the other Pooka went, and I don’t like that idea, seeing as how no one’s ever come back.” He pauses. “There’d be no more of this.”  
  
“There’ll be no more of this, anyway,” Pitch says. “I’m the boogeyman.”  
  
Aster sighs. He’s never sure what to say to that. On their best nights, he could believe it, Pitch awesome and terrible and laughing against the orange moon. He’s looked into Pitch’s eyes and seen something there as old as humanity, older than any Pooka, older than glamour.   
  
Most nights he just sees an old fey, too old to remember whether he’s supposed to be in a Seelie or Unseelie court, mostly too stubborn to seek his own comfort, too strange to be offered much without his seeking it, one of a kind and lost without the rules that guide the rest of the fey in their kinds.  
  
“I am the boogeyman,” Pitch says again. “The Guardians were created to fight me. You can’t be a Guardian and keep me in your bed!” He clutches at the ruff of thick fur on Aster’s chest, his sharp nails reaching down to his skin.  
  
“If I disappear, I won’t be able to do anything about leaving you alone,” Aster says. “If I’m with the Guardians, at least there’s a hope.”  
  
“Hope,” Pitch mutters, still clinging to Aster. “What good’s that?”

**Author's Note:**

> Tags and Comments from Tumblr:
> 
> #POUND THE ALARM IT'S A RAREPAIR
> 
> thewheelsonthebusgofuckyourself said: AAAAAAAAAAAAAH *takes breath* AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH
> 
> guardianofbelief said: I’m making grabby hands because I want so much more of this. I love this. god I love your writing and it’s fantastic and beautiful and raw and so visceral! Just devastatingly beautiful.


End file.
